Is this what we can expect?
The Washington Post has introduced its new tabloid geared towards the 18 to 34 year olds and commuters. The Express as it is called is best described as a daily tabloid with condensed news, made up from wire reports and retreads. Jack Shafer at Slate called it "The Washington Post Lite." In Shafer's article he described how the local Alt weekly's satirical issue the created in response to the Express call "Expresso." The satirical issue had as its cover lead "For those who will not read, we salute you!" This was obviously a slam on the Express's format of condensed news, a McNews style.

Is this a sign of what the Enquirer's Weekly will be like? Will it be just recycled Gannett News Service articles cut down to 400 words or less? I hope this is not what they have in mind. I hope they make it worth reading, not just worth browsing. I fear that the Washington Post model is what the business side of the Enquirer has in mind to help build up revenues. If this is all that the Enquirer's Weekly is going to be, then editorially CityBeat will have nothing to fear in the battle of quality. However, in the marketing game the Enquirer may be able to tap into the mass audience's laziness and ignorance. McDonald's, after all, has a boatload of customers, just not the quality worthy of a good meal.

D-Day for Springer
Wednesday is the Day for Jerry to announce his intentions. I am torn. I do not know what he will do. He has cut himself off from contact with the media, to the point of not even updating his blog with new posts. I don't know if Springer is really another Ventura. The two do have similarities in the demographic they need as their base, but Springer can be a slick politician when he needs to be.

At this point I am predicting that Springer will not run, but I am not sure. Springer could just be using this as a contract renegotiation tactic, or he could be serious. I predict a low media turnout at his news conference, but a big dose of blogdom repudiation.

Buzz Agents
Dwight Patton of the CBUF called into Lincoln Ware's radio program today and made what appeared to be a claim that the Boycott B, Nate and Company, are some kind of "agents" or counter-intelligence group out to presumably disrupt the boycott and the Boycott A groups.

I don't know who has the nutty members, Group B or Group A. Flip a coin.

Racial Healer Coming to Town?
Mary Clare Rietz, founder of "Building Relationships Toward Racial Harmony", is moving to Cincinnati from Toledo. I have never heard of her before, but one can surmise that if her leaving town warranted this article in the Blade, then she must have done something worthwhile. I just hope it was not a slow news day. I do not know if she plans on continuing her work to help race relations, but she could not have picked a better place to try and do some good in that area. We sure can use the help. I just hope that if she does want to help, that she does not have a preconceived notion of Cincinnati, the problems here, or the overall problems with race relations.

Observation
Is the Steve Stifler character from the American Pie movies based on George Bush? I mean the drinking, the arrogance, the total inability to think that anyone who is not you matters, they could be twins.

New Blog to Cincinnati Area
Barney McClelland, a local freelance writer, has started a new blog called As I Please. Barney has some new interesting writing that I will have to dig into a bit more. He does need to learn how to add links to his blog though.

How to Write a Fluff Piece on Politics
Carl Weiser from Gannett gets a gold star for writing a most useless political article. If I wanted E! on Washington I might have asked for at least some sex and drugs to go along with the PR drivel.

There are tons of issues to write about regarding Jerry Springer’s potential Senate run, but this is type of People Magazine story we get from a Washington reporter? The Enquirer is going of the deep end of Pop Culture. This article belongs in the Temp section, not a news section.